


with your shield or on it

by goblindaughter



Series: life and times [2]
Category: The Immortals - Tamora Pierce
Genre: Duelling, Female Character of Color, Other, POV Female Character, Rule 63, cisgirl!Inar, cisgirl!Numair
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-15
Updated: 2013-10-15
Packaged: 2017-12-28 18:09:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 939
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/994942
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goblindaughter/pseuds/goblindaughter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Inara Hadensra would have been a black robe, had she not found university life too constricting. Numaire is the only one with a chance of defeating her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	with your shield or on it

**Author's Note:**

> This wasn't meant to be a series, but I caved. Not that I'm complaining, this was fun to write.
> 
>  
> 
> [Hadensra or Hadensra?](http://mediafiles.cineplex.com/Blog/English/FullSize/PR-heather.jpg)
> 
>  
> 
> (And if anyone was thinking that there's no e in Numair--I know there isn't. I feminized the name.)

It’s not hard to find Inara Hadenrsa. The battlefield is scorched where she’s struck, and triangulation is child’s play. Numaire catches the Scanran’s next blast on one of her shields and deflects it to the ground.

“Inara Hadensra!” she calls. “What do you think you're playing at?" Her voice booms across the field, amplified by magic--it's a tiny bit of power, much less than the magefire Inara just threw. But she'll be watching herself after this. Even the opal round her neck can only give her so much, and she'll need everything she's got.

Hadensra will kill her, if she slips up even once.

Fear coils in her stomach, heavy and sharp-edged. She takes a deep breath and erases it, as she’s done so many times before. (Lindhall's voice whispers in the back of her head: _Caution is good. Fear will make you fail._ )

“Is that a challenge, Salmalin?” Hadensra calls back. She throws another bolt of magefire, and Numaire knocks it away. It hits the ground, turning it to glass. Horses scream and throw their riders, and a space rapidly clears around them. Good.

“What else could it be? These soldiers are no competition!” She strides forward, closing the space between them. The goal is to goad Hadensra into fighting her and her alone. It shouldn't be hard--mages like them always want to know how far they can push. “I’m your only true opponent, Hadensra. Will you face me or will you take the easy battle?”

Hadensra's answer is a wall of flame hot enough to scorch the earth bare. Numaire parts it and steps through, unburnt. Behind her, a man shouts in fear, and she spins and douses the fire before it can take him. She needs to get this battle isolated, or Hadensra will drain her dry by making her protect the soldiers.

"It would be a true pity if one of us got a spear through the back before we finished," Numaire says, turning back. Hadensra laughs.

"True. Build a shield with me." She grins, showing a gold tooth. "Wouldn't want to have an unfair advantage."  As a ploy, it's transparent--she wants to feel Numaire's Gift out--but she's right. They'll build the shield in conjunction or not at all. Together, they extend their magic upwards. There's the usual battle for equibilibrium, short and violent, and then they form a sphere of interlocking red and black.

Then the battle begins.

Hadensra strikes first, with a blisteringly cold lance of magefire that freezes the air around it. Numaire shatters it and flings the shards back. One of them slices across Hadensra's hand. The rest liquify, morphing into a poisonous cloud that Numaire freezes.

The power buzzes in her veins, and she feels the dangerous joy rushing under the surface. She doesn't have to leash her Gift inside this bubble--she can  _let go_ , and liking it too much will make her just like Hadensra. Or Ozorne.

Hadensra is laughing, now, and the ground  _rolls_. She stills the wave, liquifies the ground beneath Hadensra--

\--and on and on it goes.

 

As it continues, they draw closer and closer, and their attacks grow more and more short and vicious. No sweeping, flashy gestures now. They've drained themselves too much. Now all their power is bent on victory. Strike, block, strike again. The air is humming with energy, warped as if seen through bad glass.

And Numaire is flagging.

She knows it. Hadensra knows it. This isn't about technical skill anymore, or even about sheer volume of the Gift. It's about ferocity, and she has less. But  _losing_ and  _lost_ are not the same thing, and she'll be damned if she fails here. Too much is riding on this battle.

The problem is shields. Neither of them has been able to batter past the other's personal defenses yet, and if they keep trying, it won't go well with her.

Luckily, she thinks she has a better idea. They’ll have to be close, closer than they are now, but--if she’s fast, she can pull it off. (Goddess bless Onua Chamtong, she thinks.)

On the next strike, she falls. She hooks a foot around Hadensra's ankle and yanks. With a curse, Hadensra topples.

Numaire draws the hidden dagger Onua gave her, and brings it down in a sloppy, obvious strike.  _Control the point of focus._

Hadensra catches it, knocking the knife from her hand, and laughs."Weak, Salmalin!" Her grip grinds the bones of Numaire's wrist together, and she starts to bend it backwards. "Tell me, when I kill you, will you get back up? Or was that a one-time trick?"

She doesn't see Numaire pulling power from the shield. Nor does she see what Numaire is doing with her other hand--until the shield vanishes, and Numaire presses the pads of her fingers to Hadensra's chest and channels all the raw power she can muster straight into the Scanran mage.

Hadensra screams. For a moment, she's incandescent, glowing from her bones, her ruby eye sparking.

Then she  _melts_.

Numaire scrambles backwards, away from the mess. She doesn't get far before her muscles give out. Her gorge rises and she retches, half from disgust and half from the shock of overdraw. Even killing Tristan didn't hurt so badly, and it wasn't so...visceral. There weren't  _components of mage_ soaking into the dirt. She suspects there will be nightmares about this, for the rest of her life.

But she did it. She won. Her part is finished. She crawls back to the tree, clutching her wrist, and slumps against it.

Now all she has to do is wait.


End file.
